A loving tribute to funk, recorded by a couple of Talking Heads on vacation (Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz), Adrian Belew, and others. The song became a classic, being sampled endlessly in the early days of hip-hop. However, as great and as groundbreaking as the song was/is, the animated video is even better. Almost 35 years later, it still seems revolutionary.
If there was ever a better argument for pot legalization than this scene from the creepy 1987 cult movie “River’s Edge,” I have yet to see it. This is probably the scariest … and funniest … variation of the “buying pot from the weird older guy” scenario that many of you may or may not have experienced in your wayward youth. By the way, that’s Keanu Reeves in the background.
Alt-country legends the Bottle Rockets do a slammin’, very heavy cover of Neil Young’s deep album cut from the bleak masterpiece “Tonight’s the Night.” All I can say is, “Damn!” And also, “Why haven’t the Rockets ever officially released a cover of this?”
Before the Tuff Darts recorded their first album for Sire, Robert Gordon left the group and arguably had greater success as a rockabilly singer. This cover of Jack Scott’s “The Way I Walk” with 50s guitar legend Link Wray is a masterpiece of swagger and menace. Wray’s guitar on this track must rank among the sickest solos ever recorded. In 1994, this was used during the pre-credits sequence of Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers.”
A common misconception is that Lou Reed was the Prince of Darkness in the Velvet Underground. While Reed is pretty dark, many would argue that John Cale was the real dark one in the VU. Don’t believe me? Look at the Velvet Underground’s output once Cale left the group. With Cale, the Velvets recorded “Heroin,” “Venus in Furs,” “White Light/White Heat,” “Sister Ray,” and “The Gift.” Post Cale: “What Goes On,” “Jesus,” “Sweet Jane,” “Rock and Roll.”
Cale can dress things up beautifully with orchestral arrangements and lilting vocals (his best known song is arguably his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” from the “Shrek” soundtrack) . But during the mid-late 1970s, Cale let his freak flag fly with some brilliant, disturbing, and very heavy stuff. “Chickens–t” is from Cale’s lesser-known post-Island records period, more specifically the 1977 EP “Animal Justice.” A wonderfully malevolent and sinister hard rock masterpiece.
Another moment of genius from the early Stones. From their severely underrated album “Out of our Heads” comes this cover of a song first recorded by Solomon Burke in 1962. Like many of their early great songs, the song builds wonderful tension that explodes during the chorus. Classic rock stations: burn that freakin’ copy of “Hot Rocks 1964-1971” you play ad nauseum and start digging deep!!!
Pre-major label Social D. covers one of the Rolling Stones’ most beautiful and most troubling songs.
The original is a lovely-sounding acoustic ballad, where the protagonist is a rich guy who tells his mistress in no uncertain terms what her place is in his life. As I said earlier about the Stones’ original, “Jagger and the gang could be doing an ironic Randy Newman-esque take on a sleazy, phliandering rich guy, which I would buy … except for the fact that I’m sure that the attitude of the song’s narrator is not far from the way they probably felt about women back in the day. A great song with contradictory and often troubling messages? Hmm … sounds like the Stones to me in a nutshell.”
Social D. says “Ah, bulls–t!” to such nonsense and just bashes through the song as Social D. is wont to do. I can’t say that they’re wrong in their approach.
Dave’s Strange World just had it’s 2,000th view today. Many thanks to everyone, from followers to lurkers, for the continued success of this blog.
To celebrate, esteemed British actor Oliver Reed has agreed to come back from the grave to do a solo performance of what dance purists call “Drunk on Aspel.”
The all-time Top 10 most popular posts on Dave’s Strange World:
10. “Copendium” written by Julian Cope
9. “Mother” – Natalie Maines (with Fred Norris) live on the Howard Stern Show 1-4-2013
8. “The Rebel Jesus” – Jackson Browne and the Chieftains
7. “Spirit of Truth aka One Man Show” (1997) – Vincent Stewart as Reverend X
5. “Russ Meyer’s Vixen” (1968) dir. Russ Meyer
4. “Saturday Night Live 1980″ – Nathan Rabin’s “How Bad Can it Be? Case File #23″
2. “Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson” by Kevin Avery
and still #1 with a bazooka …
One of the best crime thrillers of the last 15 years, “A Simple Plan” has never quite gotten its due. It was based on a best-selling novel, had perfect actors for their respective roles (Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Brent Briscoe, Bridget Fonda), had a terrific script by the novel’s author Scott B. Smith, and excellent directing by Sam Raimi. It got some respectful nods from critics, Oscar nominations for Thornton and Smith, but bombed at the box office and has now been virtually forgotten.
That’s too bad, because this is a superior, intelligent thriller that presents more ethical quandaries and dilemmas than a graduate course on Ethics. The premise seems simple: three men find over $4 million in the woods near a crashed plane and decide to keep it. But then things unravel … and all three men find themselves in a world of danger that keeps escalating and the men find themselves doing things they would have never thought possible.
It reminds me of something I read once … maybe by Russian philosopher and semiotician Mikhail Bakhtin … that basically asserted that it’s not one act that causes man to act unethically. If you wonder how you would act if presented with a significant moral and ethical dilemma, your answer is in how you act when presented with arguably minor ethical dilemmas (i.e. getting too much change back from a cashier, finding that jewelry item you reported missing after were paid for the item by your insurance company). It’s the little decisions you make in your day to day life that comprises your character and what will define what you do in the face of a horrible decision. Nobody’s perfect and even good people can make bad decisions. But a callous disregard for such things in minor situations is likely to lead to more horrendous decisions later. I may be wrong on whether it was Bakhtin that said this, but the sentiment holds very strongly to this film … and to what I have seen is behind most people’s very bad decisions.
“A Simple Plan” is deep. Very deep. And it will stay with you for days.
One of the best films about teenagers ever made, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” was based on screenwriter Cameron Crowe’s real-life attempt to go back to high school undercover and write about what high school life was really like. The results are very funny, though they’re also sometimes extremely painful and awkward. Director Heckerling was especially sensitive in viewing how these kids were experiencing life. The characters are young, but they also face many things we tend to regard as adult issues (i.e. employment issues, unplanned pregnancies). I don’t know if things these days are better or worse for teenagers … especially given how nasty things have gotten with bullying, the internet, etc., but also with helicopter parenting being accepted as normal.
This scene between Sean Penn’s stoner character and Ray Walston’s teacher is a comedy classic. Walston’s character may be a “dick,” but he also deals with Penn’s character in a very calm, non-hysterical way … that’s also funny as hell. Seriously, what would YOU do, if you had Penn’s character as a student? I think it speaks volumes for Heckerling’s and Crowe’s instincts to have them at least come to a meeting of the minds at the end of the film. They’ll never be buddies, but you get the sense that there is a mutual respect there.
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